Recently, various types of cameras are being installed on vehicles, and various techniques utilizing the cameras are being researched. Principally, techniques related to driving safety of a vehicle are being researched.
Particularly, in the field of utilizing face recognition, there are many techniques for providing driving conveniences, e.g., a technique for detecting drowsiness or abnormalities of a driver, a technique for confirming a particular driver and adjusting position of a driver's seat in correspondence to the driver.
The Korean Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 10-2011-0040562 (Personalized Service and Apparatus and Method for Using Car) discloses a camera, which is installed on a door next to a driver's seat of a vehicle and captures images of objects outside the vehicle, and a processor, which determines whether an object is a driver registered to the vehicle based on a captured image and, if the object is a driver registered to the vehicle, provides a personalized services to the registered driver by setting up the vehicle according to set values corresponding to the registered driver. Therefore, if a driver is registered to the vehicle in advance, the vehicle may be set up according to set values corresponding to the registered driver, thereby providing a personalized service to the registered driver.
According to the above-stated patent, a time period elapsed for providing a personalized service by determining whether a driver is a registered driver by using an image of the driver captured before the driver enters a vehicle may be reduced. However, services that may be provided according to the above-stated patent include simple re-adjustments of set values according to drivers, such as adjustment of position of a driver's seat. Furthermore, since a high performance system is required therefor, it is difficult to apply the technical configuration to vehicles in the low-price range.